Brock Neverman's posts

Ok, on your site you state
"In a 25 mph the wind Generator will produce 734 Watts of electrical energy Maximum. RPM will be 525"

So assuming a constant 25 mph winds and doing some math 24/7/365.  Let�s just call it 750w at 25mph.  750w*24hr=18kw  18kw*30=540kw.  So if you have a constant 25 mph wind, you will get 540kw a month, correct?

I am not trying to knock this product in any way I am trying to figure this out.  Am I doing the math wrong?  Does it really put out more power then what is stated on your site?

What are the physical sizes of those panels?

As far as shipping goes, it's expensive, but if you take them to a UPS store they will box them for you.  I think it was about $50 (boxing, shipping and insuracnce) on the last two I got.

I hate suggesting this all the time but honestly the easiest way is to run a small genset.

Now there are HUGE differences in generators.  For what your talking about I would look at either the Honda EU1000i or the EU2000i.  The reason is they are very quiet and the engine speeds up and slows down as loads are added or taken away.  So they last much longer, use less fuel and are WAY quieter.  They run about $800 and $1200 right now, usually cheaper but with all the hurricanes they are getting list on them.

You could go with a 200-400w solar array and batteries and inverter, but size wise it is a LOT more and would require more maintenance and wouldn't be as safe just left in the wilds, while a small genset could be carried away when not in use.

intermatic makes a digital timer that runs on a single AA or the newer version is AAA.  Anyway it is a DPDT latching switch.  So you can power any loads up to 15A.  It can have multiple on/ off times a week, day or combination.  Best of all it fits in a standard single gang box replacing a regular switch.  It can be overriden by just lightly pressing on the front cover for on and off.

I can't find the part #, but I have seen them at home Depot, Menards, and fleet Farm.  I think even Walmart carries them

Well with a DR inverter you can't feed back in to the grid.  That inverter has no way of matching what is comming in so you would have to upgrade to a grid tie inverter to do this.

I would suggest just using as much of the power that you generate as you can, maybe adding a dump load such as a water heater element to use up any extra power, or maybe a window AC unit  

Yes, but if you live somewhere that ahs 10 hours of sun a day that is amazing.  Typically the US ranges from 3 to 6 sun hours a day, 3 being in the NE and 6 being in the SW.  Also to that 20% loss in the panel you will get another 10-15% in the inverter itself, although some batteryless systems are above 80% overall.

For a batteryles system an intertying inverter such as the Sunnyboy SMA 1800 and solar panels are all you need.

I saw those as well and they are real panels.  I also found them to be rated at 72v.  Theya re a bit large for only 42w though but the price is hard to beat per watt.

That whispergen site has been up for years.  I have yet to see one in person.  From what I can gather they are more common in places other then the U.S., and they were having trouble getting UL approval or something along those lines.

Check out

http://www.fieldlines.com/

They build their own all the time and have great tips on the odd things.

What you will want to do is set the panels for 12v and hook them all in series so you will have 60v system, or about 100v open.  Then get an Outback MX-60 and use that to convert the 100v to 12v.  This way you should be running 6 amps at 100v.  Check out
http://lamplight.no-ip.org/webcam.html
He is running 48v to a 12v system, but I have been told you could run up to a 72v system, but it is near the top end of the MX-60's range.

I used to have a solar boost 50, but as you said it didn't start mppt�ing until I hit over 2 amps on the input side.  The MX 60 will start mppt'ing when it hits .6a on the output side, so likely when you got even .1 on the input side you would start mppt'ing.  On the exact same setup the SB-50 made 10.2 amps and the mx-60 made 12.8, well worth it.

It sounds like you know the advantage of getting the voltage up to reduce power loss.  My panels are about 140' wire run from my mx-60, about 60 feet above them to the roof.  But about every time you double your voltage you cut your loss in half.  So by going with a series 60v system you would be 1/6 the loss of a 12v system and you can get away with smaller wire.

Typically when people refer to kw, they are referring to kw hours, so it is really the same thing.

Actually in the Boston area you are even less, in the 4-5 hour range.  Again this is average hours of full sun all year round, more in summer less in winter.

First you�re sure it is 50 kw a day?  Those must be some serious pumps! My 2 speed, 2 HP pool pump pulls about 4kw a day in low speed and I run 12 on 12 off.

Anyway, to do this calc we need to know your location, but I will assume somewhere warm, and guess at 6 sun hours a day.  So we divide 50kw by 6 hours to get 8.3kw per hour of sun.  Now you will loose about 10% converting to 120v or 240v from the battery voltage, and about 10% from storing the power in the batteries.  So let�s just assume a 20% loss.  Now that is 8.3kw times 1.2 is about 10kw.  So we need 10kw of solar panels to power it.  That is a large array.  Typically they run between $4 and $5 per watt so that would be $40,000 and $50,000 for your system.

If I were in your shoes I would look at more efficient motors.  Even if you spend $2000 for new motors that could cut your usage from 50kw a day to 25kw a day, you would see savings much quicker that way.

Brock

Scott, I was thinking, are you sure you�re using 3000KW a month.  The more I think about it that is a lot.  Is your bill in the $200+ range?  I mean I use a lot of power 99% of it at off peak rates ($.038 per kw), and I only use about 1000kw in summer (AC) and about 600kw in winter.  Almost all my on peak is supplied by solar.  That might be another approach for you to look at.

Basically most power companies will sell power at a lower rate at night, ours is less then half of the regular rate, then on peak or during the day it is about 2.5 times the going rate.  Since the sun shines during the day it is perfect for this sort of use.  The power companies do this because there is about 4 to 6 times the demand for power during the day and you basically have excess power during the night.  Sort of like empty seats on an airplane, they are better off selling it cheap rather then wasting it.

I have seen them at Fleet Farm, they come with a small solar panel and a 12v battery.  You could make this up yourself.  Some fencers are 12v based, so you could power them off any 12v battery and a small panel and charge controller.   This might be added to an existing system or your future pump system.

Brock  (from Green Bay)

Well, 3000 kw a month, figure 28 days, thats 108 kw or 108,000w per day.  In FL I think you get 6 hours of sun a day (average with clouds)?  So then 108,000w by 6 to get 18,000w per hour.  Now you need to add about 20% more for conversion losses so 18,000 x 1.2 is about 22,000w.  That would be a HUGE array, typically they are 3000 to 5000 w in size.

Now your inverter can only convert 4000w max so I would suggest about 5000w max for your array.  Typical arrays cost between $4-$5 a watt, so again take $5x5000w or $25,000 for the installation and that will only get you about 1/4 of your typical usage.

I would strongly suggest you take a look at your usage and see what can be reduced, maybe switch over to compact fluorescent where ever you can, maybe upgrade you fridge, freezer, AC and any other large motor you might have.

Hope this helps

Assuming it is a typical 80 amp deep cycle you would need 80 amps x 12 volts or 960w to charge it from dead.

Now a typical 80a battery will loose about .5 amp a day from fully charged so that is 6 watts a day just to maintain the battery.

Now if you have good sun for 4 hours a day, that would get you 20 watts a day, 5 used to not slip backwards, so 15w in to the battery.  960w / 15w = 64 days.  Of course it depends on the size of the battery and how deeply discharged it is.  Also a 5 watt panel might actually supply closer to 3.5w to 4w at 12v rather then the 5w at 18v.

If you haven't already bought them I would strongly suggest the SW line.  Lets say you have a smaller genset, you can set the inverters to pull only so much power from the genset.  And best of all it can either charge the batteries or pass through to the load.  So say you have a genset that can supply 20 amps and an inverter that can supply 20 amps.  Now if you have a 10 amp load on the output of the inverter the genset will be passing 10 amps though the inverter to the load and charging the battery bank at with the other 10 amps.  Now say the load drops to 1 amp, then you have 1 amp passing through and 19 charging the batteries.  Now say you have a 30 amp load, you have the 20 amps from the genset passing though and the inverter uses the batteries to add the additional 10 amps so you can power a 30 amp load.  Of course the inverters output can be used with anything that I know of, while when I had my DR2412 some things really didn't like the waveform (motors use between 10 and 25% more power) and it smoked some of my controls.  Also the SW line can tell the genset to start at a give voltage and then tell it to shut off again later.  So you can set the inverter to start the genset if it sees a load larger then 15 amps to help power the load and set quite times that it won�t start the genset unless necessary.  Also when your genset is running you are getting the most power out of it so it can run for a shorter amount of time overall.

In my case I set the SW�s to only pull about 80% of the continuous rater power on the genset so I can�t overload it and it doesn�t run as hot.

I would have to say no.  The charge controller is going to do what the diodes would to.  I have none in my system if it makes you feel better.

Well I am selling my old SB-50 so if anyone wants it it is on ebay (love the MX-60 so far)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5910982978&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

Brock

I am thinking of replacing my Solar Boost 50 with an Outback MX 60 so I can run 48v from my panels to my 12v bank rather then 24v, and a couple of other reasons.

My question is I have heard that there are three versions of the MX60, the latest being 2000+ serial numbers.  So if I ordered a new one from here would it be a 2000+ serial number?  Just making sure it wouldn't be older stock.